[aunty_helen]

> The number one thing that got me to senior engineer, and will get me to staff as I improve (though staff has more of a relationship management component)

I love the little rat race we’ve created for ourselves. When did staff engineer become a thing? I’ve just noticed it but feel like it’s probably been around for a few years.

Next question when you get to staff engineer what next? Do you become a lead engineer or staff engineer II?

Jokes aside

> Not getting angry when the codebase is not architected well or is hard to understand.

This is the most important job hack for a software engineer of any artificial title. Even more important when your title starts with a C.

[lazyasciiart]

Usually I see Staff Engineer followed by a title like Architect. Never ever by anything about Lead or Manager because that's the whole point, you should be able to increase your scope so you're making tech decision across the whole org without also becoming a good people manager.

[likpok]

Staff engineer is the name for a “rank” but the rank has existed for a long long time. Staff is the first “leadership” engineering role - roughly equivalent to a manager in scope.

Some places have a manager equivalent of senior engineer but that’s also sometimes a role you’re expected to rapidly leave: either via promotion or back to IC.